1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image data processing apparatus and system for processing image data.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With recent rapid developments in image data processing systems incorporating computers, demand has arisen for high-speed processing of image data as well as data processing or word processing. Along with this tendency, image data is frequently inputted through an input apparatus such as an image reader, the input image data is processed with an operational processing apparatus, and the processed image data is supplied to an output apparatus such as a laser beam printer and printed thereby.
In such a case, image data read by an image reader is stored as original image data in a main memory of the operational processing apparatus through an interface. Thereafter, in order to display the image data on a CRT display, the operational processing apparatus processes the data to reduce or enlarge the image, and stores the processed data in a CRT display memory. Thereafter, editing such as image extraction or shifting of the image is performed on the CRT display.
The edited image data is stored in a memory device such as an electronic file or a disk device or is supplied to a hard copy apparatus such as a laser beam printer.
However, in such a conventional technique, the image data read by an image reader is supplied to the main memory until all the original image data is stored therein, and then the processed image data for CRT display is transmitted. For this reason, it takes a considerable period of time before the image data is displayed on the CRT display after it is read by the image reader.